Annie

Hi everyone,

My cat Annie was diagnosed last Thursday with diabetes. Annie is 16 and also has kidney disease, arthritis, and probably cancer. Regarding the cancer, she has a baseball sized growth on her side. We have not tested it because we would not do anything for cancer at her age (and we could not afford it).

We home test. She started at 1 unit and her levels would stay between 465 at the very least and would most often be just "high," so above 750. Last night we started at 3 and her levels have ranged between 90 and 523 over the past 24 hours. It seems that 3 may be her dose.

The main problem right now is that she eats very little. She has gone from eating 3/4 of a can of Hills Prescription JD or KD to perhaps a tablespoon of wet. Even though her numbers were great today, she had no appetite tonight so I forced her to eat a tablespoon of JD. She is on Cerenia and Mirtazapine.

Any advice on helping her appetite improve would be greatly improved.

Thanks for your support.

Annie's mom

 

Hi Annie and Annie's mom! Welcome to our little forum! To start with, to clarify, Annie is on ProZinc, right?

So glad to hear that you home test! That's the first step to keeping her safe and healthy. Can we get a bit of clarification on the dose? So you started on 1 unit last Thursday? Did you go straight to 3 from there? We usually raise in much lower amounts because it's easy to skip over the ideal dose. When you say her numbers have ranged some over the past 24 hours, can you give us an idea of what they've looked like? Might help us see what's going on a bit. If you give us her preshot numbers and then tell us how many hours past the shot each test occurred, that'll make it simple for us all. For example:

• AMPS (the morning number before the shot)
• +1 (the test the first hour after the shot)
• +2(second hour after the shot)

And so on until PMPS and start over with the +1. Obviously, we don't expect you to have data for each hour (none of us do that!) but just whatever you have.

Now for the eating. Does the mirtzapine help at all? Will she eat anything...not just the prescription food, but ANY food...wet or dry? Will she eat treats or tuna? Sometimes mixing tuna water into the food or crumbling treats on top will help them eat. Will she eat later on...like nibble at food at shot time and then eat again a few hours later?

 

Hi Rachel,

Thank you so much for your kind reply. Yes, she is on ProZinc. Attached are her numbers. I haven't done pre-shot testing but I can easily.

She was eating dry Friskies and dry JD, but after reading how dry food was not recommended, I stopped giving it to her. I may try it again tomorrow. She has also eaten deli turkey but wasn't interested in it tonight.

I like the tuna water idea. Unfortunately the ridiculous girl has never liked treats. We are fortunate in that my mom has been able to come over and check on her during the day, and she was eating small amounts during the day (Mom started testing her during the day today, too). But now I understand that the food makes her glucose change, so we were trying to really keep her on a twice a day schedule. Thoughts?

Thanks again so much.

 

Wow! Hi Annie's mom! You're doing such a great job!!! The data you have is super helpful, and you're doing a great job of testing.

If you're interested in using the snazzy color-coded spreadsheet that you see in most of our "signatures" (light grey text that appears whenever we post), here is a link:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/

The color coding happens automatically when you put the numbers in, and it really helps in finding patterns for what works and what isn't working for your kitty.

I would suggest keeping the dose at 3u for a few days since you got that 90 around +7 which is towards the end of the typical nadir (lowest point in the cycle) for most cats. Annie might have gone a bit lower just prior to that test, so you won't want to increase her dose any more than this until you have a bit more data and have learned all about treating hypoglycemia (if you don't already know about that).

I'm sorry Annie has so much going on! It sounds like getting her to eat is the top priority, and then we can dose around whatever food you can convince her to eat. Do you know what stage of CKD she's in?

 

Thanks so much, Djamila. I love a good chart so I'll probably do the color-coding. Thanks for sharing that.

I don't know what stage of CKD she is in, but I do know that it hasn't changed recently according to her last blood test that diagnosed the diabetes. She was only on KD, no fluids or other medication for the kidney disease. Sorry that I don't have more information about that aspect.

Thanks again.

 

If you can get the vet to email you a copy of the latest labs we can offer suggestions.

Good job home testing and welcome to the forum.


Sometimes b12 methylcobalamin can help with appetite... Esp if they are anemic which is common with ckd cats. It can also help with diabetic neuropathy and low energy. Zobaline is a common one you can get on amazon

There are several foods that are both low in carb and low in phosphorus. I would steer clear of the perscription kd food unless he's in a late stage as it tends to be low in protien which can lead to muscle wasting. Of course it sounds like right now the problem is getting any food into him. Not eating is very serious as it leads to other complications such as fatty liver disease. Feed him anything he will eat.... Chicken, tuna, deli meats.... Gotta get his appetite going.


The number one thing you can do for ckd cat is sub q fluids. It's surprisingly easy to do and can prolong progression of the disease much longer and make them feel better.

 

Yeah dry food isn't usually recommended, but at this stage, give her anything she will eat I'd say. Generally speaking, you want her to not eat 2 hours before the preshot test as that means your preshot will be food influenced. A lot of us let our kitties free graze during the day and then just take up food 2 hours prior to the shot. Have you tried the tuna water? Could try putting some deli turkey on top of her food too.

Another thing is fortiflora which I've used for my kitties (they LOVE it). It's a probiotic and most cats go crazy for it I believe.

 

Thank you all.

 

My vet said it's okay to feed them boiled chicken, but I haven't tried it yet.

 

To clarify: boiled chicken is a great treat, or occasional food if they have an upset tummy. It is not a complete food in that it lacks some essential nutrients for cats, so should not be the only food over the long term.